V E 




ORATION 



BY THE LATE 



COL. WILLIAM A. JACKSOK 



PRESENTED TO THE FRIENDS 



COLONEL JACKSON, 



AS A SOUVENIR OF HIM. 



ys 



AN ORATION, 



DELIVERED AT WINDHAM CENTRE, GREENE COUNTY, N.Y., 

JULY 4, 1859, 



BY THE LATE 



COL. WILLIAM a/ JACKSON, 

OF TUE EIGUTEENTH REGIMENT OF NEW-YORK VOLUNTEERS. 



^ ALBANY : 

C. VAN BENTHUYSEN. PRINTER. 
1863. 



»1 



ORATION. 



It has been said, Fellow -citizens, that as a 
nation, we have no history. But when I read of 
the enterprize, the courage, the determination 
which peculiarly characterize the colonization 
of our land ; and when to-day, in looking about 
me, I perceive the wonderful results that have 
been accomplished since the Saxon arm began 
the conflict with primeval nature on our own 
shores, I am persuaded that no other chapter in 
the history of the world presents so splendid a 
phase of human development. 

Our history does not offer the reader the 
eventful succession of a long and brilliant mo- 
narchy : it has no feudal and chivalric period, 
no grand armada, no Waterloo ; but it records 
the patient endurance, the heroic suffering, the 
God-given energy and will which have upreared 
a mighty empire. It records the story of a 
revolution, which marked a new era in the 
progress of the race ; it writes, on the page of 
heroes, the names of thousands whose brave 
hearts beat for humanity. 



— 6 — 

The contemplation of these facts in our hi- 
story shoukl give us great pride. From these we 
can learn what it is to be American citizens in 
the full and proper sense. They offer us example 
and advice. Let us ask ourselves what is Ame- 
rican citizenship ; what the position, the duties, 
the rewards. To be a citizen of this free land 
implies sovereignty ; not domination over a 
crushed people, not the unbridled license of one 
against tl^e fettered liberties of all others, but 
the sovereignty over self, the freedom of un- 
trammelled utterance, the privilege of a voice 
in the creation of the laws which govern. 

The political condition of the American 
citizen is anomalous, in the present condition 
of the world. The causes that make it thus are 
written in our revolution, in our constitution, 
in our political system. And because it is ano- 
malous, because the American citizen is the sole 
representative of the principle of self-govern- 
ment, because to his care history has bequeathed 
the priceless ideas asserted and established by 
patriots at Athens and at Rome, because from 
buried ages comes the warning voice of the 
Forum and the Capitol, because humanity sends 
from the old world its wail of lamentation, 
should each citizen feel himself the exponent 



of the system under which he lives, and so act 
by voice and vote as to strengthen its power 
for good. The position of the American citizen, 
then, is one of great responsibility. A Provi- 
dence in history has made him a prominent 
figure in the world's drama. He is looked upon 
and envied, because he is free. He possesses 
every right w^hich man can ask. It is not then 
merely his pleasure to enjoy his freedom and 
his rights, but his duty to prove them worthy 
of enjoyment by strengthening and defending 
them, by preserving their purity, and thus 
giving them a voice of moral strength which 
shall speak like the voice of prophecy to the 
nations of the earth. 

Oh the responsibility of freedom ! Do the 
men of America feel it ? Do they properly re- 
member, on this our Nation's great festival, the 
occasion and the means that gave it birth ? Do 
they remember that they possess their liberty 
in trust ? Do they remember that they should 
render it with increase to their children ? Do 
they bear in mind that the magnitude of a 
blessing is a measure of responsibility? Let 
every man write over his hearthstone, "Where 
much is given, much wdll be required." 



The sovereignty and responsibility of Ame- 
rican citizenship involve the performance of 
many duties. In what spirit do we perform 
them ? Is it with the purity of sentiment and 
the dignity of action which their importance 
requires ? I leave the answer to the conscience 
of each citizen. 

When the voice from Faneuil Hall evoked 
from the bosom of the times the effort for li- 
berty, and, like the gushing waters which fol- 
lowed the rod of Israel's leader, it poured itself 
upon the land ; when the fathers, after solemn 
prayer, made that declaration which is as im- 
mortal as the principle which it asserts ; when 
the men of the Revolution had driven from the 
desecrated homes and ravaged shores of the 
colonies the mercenary instruments of British 
tyranny, and when the olive branch once more 
blossomed, and the Federal Union, supplanting 
the alliance of the colonies, had given our flag 
a national character, the duties of the American 
citizen received their inauguration, the orbit of 
their performance was designated. The work 
had begun. The weary warriors of the Revolu- 
tion, the statesmen who had directed and sus- 
tained their efforts, were approaching the hour 
appointed for all. To their children they be- 



— 9 — 

queathed their swords and their principles : 
to their children they bequeathed the liberty 
they had gained, secured by an entail which 
reckless folly alone can break. In their wisdom 
and in their great love for that liberty, they 
placed the responsibility for its preservation 
upon each citizen. Upon each citizen that re- 
sponsibility remains : its binding force grows 
stronger with time. Each year develops the 
resources of our continent ; each day adds to 
the number of our people, and each moment 
records our national sins for their final punish- 
ment. Every man knows that the wisdom of 
our ancestors placed in our hands the means of 
redressing political wrongs. It is a privilege to 
be exercised with care, but fearlessly. It is a 
weapon against wrong, only while its purity is 
preserved. It is a trenchant blade whose polish 
and edge are so brilliant and keen, that while 
in honest hands it will hew down the mightiest 
iniquity, it will tarnish and grow dull if it be 
wielded in the service of corruption. 

This privilege is the Elective Franchise, the 

proper exercise of which is the first political 

duty of the citizen. That it has been shamefully 

abused, has been made time and again to sub- 

2 



— 10 — 

serve dishonest purposes, has been employed to 
subvert the constitutional sovereignty of the 
people, has been in some localities so degraded 
that men of pure and honest sentiment have 
pronounced it a failure, is, alas, too true. But 
the fact that this abuse exists, furnishes the 
strongest motive for those who love their coun- 
try to rally to its rescue. There are honest men 
who do not vote, because the ballot-box has 
been corrupted. Are they guiltless ? Do they 
not, by refusing to exercise a right, commit a 
great wrong, as well as those who pervert it to 
dishonest purposes ? 

My Countrymen, the destinies of this nation 
are in the ballot-box. He who does not vote, 
and he who votes corruptly, are alike guilty. 
Let those who lament the misuse of the elective 
franchise, yet do not attempt to preserve its 
standard, remember that it furnishes its own 
correction. The people are honest, and it has 
ever been found that the corrupt are a minority. 
Never has there been a period in our history, 
when it was more essential for the people to 
vindicate their honesty, than at the present. 
A disposition has been manifested to sully the 
purity of our dearest rights. The unclean hand 



— 11 — 

of corruption has reared an altar for its wor- 
shippers in the temple of our liberties ; the 
venders of jDolitical wares have made its holiest 
sanctuary their market-place. Let the people 
drive out the money-changers ; drive them out 
by the force of honest votes ; drive them out, 
by performing the duties of citizens. Thus shall 
thtl glorious covenant Avith freedom, ratified by 
our fathers, not be broken. Shrink not from the 
duty of the elective franchise, if you would 
preserve, in their primal strength and beauty, 
the cardinal jirincijDles of our system. But if 
citizens allow business or pleasure to absorb the 
single hour their country asks them to give to 
her service ; if they bewail corruption, without 
arresting its progress, they need utter no com- 
plaint if it blasts the purity and truth of the 
people, and renders our national*character a 
byword and a reproach ; a lie against freedom, 
a libel upon humanity. 

The neglect of tliis primal duty has led, in 
various portions of our land, to confusion and 
anarchy. Because honest citizens have neglected 
to perform their duties, political corruption has 
accomplished the vilest purposes ; and so po- 
werful in their misuse of the ballot-box had 
the miscreants who corrupted its purity become. 



— 12 — 

that revolution was the only means by which 
the}^ could be ousted from their usurpation. 
But it is a dangerous experiment. Our system 
contains its own correction, if the citizen will 
apply it in time. Vigilance committees were 
never contemplated by the Constitution ; but 
every citizen is exhorted, by the spirit of that 
instrument, to exercise that true vigilamce 
which will destroy an evil before it can mature, 
and guard our liberty against the insidious wiles 
of the serpents it has nourished by its warmth. 

There are other duties of action and of speech, 
whose proper fulfilment should ever be opera- 
tive upon the American citizen ; but they are 
all intimately connected with his duties at the 
ballot-box. They must be manfully performed, 
to render us the efficient champions of the 
liberties wetenjoy. 

The future contains the elements of disorga- 
nization. There is to be a terrible reckoning in 
the old world, between the people and their 
rulers. Liberty and despotism are preparing for 
their final conflict, and Liberty looks through 
the gloom to us for a ray of hope to cheer her 
in the battle. 

Upon the plains of Italy, the battle-smoke 
wreathes upwards from the initial conflicts of a 



— 13 — 

struggle, which, to my mind, presages the final 
liberty of Europe ; but it will be an ordeal of 
fire and blood. The conservative influences 
which have, for selfish purposes, evoked the 
demon of war, have also aroused a spirit in the 
people which cannot be propitiated or allayed. 

Are we to remain silent spectators of the 
scene ? Time alone will disclose our part. But 
in view of our position as a nation, representing 
that principle of government for which the 
earnest souls of Europe pant as " the hart for 
the water-brooks ;" in view of the fact, written 
unmistakably in history, that Providence has 
assigned to us the solution of the great problem 
of our race, the capacity of man for self- 
government, it behoves us to jDreserve from 
taint our institutions, and to make our nationa- 
lity so conspicuous in all true and manly re- 
quisites, that it may be a beacon whose rays 
shall ever shine with an undimmed and certain 
lustre. 

And is the future without its dangers to our- 
selves ? Is our isolated position to protect us 
from collision with the mighty powers beyond 
the Atlantic ? God grant it may. But with our 
growth as a nation, our interests have propor- 
tionately extended. We are threatening to 



— 14 — 

overshadow the continent. Our relations with 
the South-American States that are now in- 
volved in civil war, may force us to assert the 
superior right of a progressive civilization to 
the control of a land upon which nature has 
heaped every blessing, over the misrule of semi- 
barbarous governments, which, in the name of 
liberty, trample upon humanity and law, and 
employ the superstitions of a degraded church 
to debase the intellect of the people. 

But such a step on our part would arouse the 
watchful jealousy of foreign powers. If they 
should deny our right, as the leading govern- 
ment of the continent, to arrange, supervise and 
control, for the protection of our citizens and 
the furtherance of our commercial interests, the 
disordered affairs of our sister republics, war 
would be the melancholy but inevitable result. 
Are we prepared for such a struggle ? Would 
the men of '59 breathe the patriotism of '76 ? 
Would the spirit of Lexington again animate 
the citizens ? Would our batteries awake the 
echoes of ChipjDewa and Lundy's Lane ? I pause 
not for an answer. A patriotism as pure and 
devoted as that of the Revolution would be 
exhibited : there would be but one cry, " To 



— 15 — 

arms ;" but one spirit, Duke et decorum est pro 
patria mori. 

But the patriotism which would rally the 
people about the national standard, the spirit 
which would animate the battle-field, must 
spring from the consciousness of an honest per- 
formance of the manifold duties of citizenship. 
That alone can nerve the arm to strike right- 
handed blows for country, home, and altar. 

The citizen who performs his duties is en- 
titled to reward. Grecian and Eoman antiquity 
decreed triumphal processions, wreaths and 
crowns, to him who on the battle-field or in the 
senate had served his country. The reward of 
the American citizen is the satisfaction of pro- 
moting the great cause of human freedom. 

The liberty of the ancient republics was re- 
strictive : ours is as expansive as the universe ; 
its pulsations beat time to the march of the age, 
and throb with the heart of humanity. The 
lands conquered by our arms are blessed with 
our institutions. The presence of our flag gua- 
rantees the privileges of the Constitution. We 
annex, not alone to impose our civilization, but 
to confer our liberty. With what pride should 
the American citizen contemplate the progress 
of his land ! What nobler reward for duty 



— 16 — 

performed can he ask, than to feel that the pro- 
sperity of this great nation has been entrusted 
to him, and that he has fulfilled the trust ? 

Every true citizen has a right so to feel. He 
has filled his sphere : he has given an example 
to the timid ; has been a reproach to the cor- 
rupt. He has assisted in accomplishing the pur- 
poses of another cycle of time, as it rolled on 
to its eternal judgment. What, in comparison, 
are crowns and wreaths ? What, to the satisfac- 
tion of a great political duty performed, is a 
triumphal procession with its train of languid 
slaves, its neighing steeds, its glittering display 
of beauty, arms, treasure ! 

If the citizen will look over the vast expanse 
of the continent, and, seeing everywhere the 
evidences of a high civilization, will remember 
that it is the growth of years, not of centuries ; 
will recal the fact that this wonderful develop- 
ment is due to the application of a single prin- 
ciple, the right and the ability of man to govern 
himself; and will learn, from the Constitution 
under which he lives, that to his care is en- 
trusted that principle, his manhood must be 
aroused to meet and assist the great necessities 
of the times. 



— 17 — 

The crowded marts of commerce, the teeming 
cities, the plain and hill-side blooming under 
the skilful hand of man, the white sails dotting 
every lake and river, the energy that moves in 
every enterprize, speak to him with an eloquence 
and poetry so grand, so beautiful, so true, that 
he must respond in the performance of those 
acts which will sustain these efforts of the age, 
and keep in motion that high principle of pro- 
gress which, on our shores, has found a develop- 
ment to cease only with time. Do we appreciate 
the position, perform the duties, enjoy the re- 
wards ? Do we, possessing the fullest liberty, 
know what it is to be free ? Do we comjjrehend 
that the United States has established another 
fact in history, that republican liberty is com- 
patible with good government ? Ask the victim 
of Austrian persecution, what is liberty : of the 
martyrs to Napoleon's despotism on the pesti- 
lential shores of Cayenne, ask what is liberty : 
open the dungeons of the Neapolitan monster, 
and ask the noble souls there lingering in pain, 
what is liberty ; and they will answer you by 
pointing to America. In our Revolution, they 
recognized the success of the principle. They 
sought to achieve it for themselves, in the very 
3 



— 18 — 

efforts which have consigned them to the dun- 
geon or to exile. Should not we who enjoy the 
blessing, appreciate it as fully as those who can 
only sigh for it ? Should not their efforts to 
obtain it, make us all the more jealous of its 
care ? 

In the faithful performance of our duties, we 
discharge an obligation due to humanity. We 
are entrusted with a principle, whose preserva- 
tion should be as dear to us as life and honor. 
When the Fathers announced it, they pledged 
to its success " their lives, their fortunes, and 
their sacred honor." That pledge was redeemed; 
the principle triumphed, and we to-day are 
living witnesses of their devotion. From this 
we learn to value our inheritance, and to per- 
form the conditions upon which it is ours. When 
we forget by what tenure we hold this inheri- 
tance, we pronounce our own sentence of de- 
privation. But can it be that we shall ever 
forget ? Is the victory of the Revolution to be 
sacrificed ? Is the spirit of the Constitution to 
be thwarted ? Are the glorious results of more 
than eighty years of freedom to be nullified ? 
What say the men of America ? Shall it be 
written in history that the last experiment of 
freedom failed, because the citizens of the re- 



— 19 — 

public forgot their duties ? It is not because we 
are prosperous, not because our growth has no 
parallel in the experience of centuries, not be- 
cause our strength is greater than at any other 
period, that we are to defy the possibility of 
national ruin. It is for these very reasons that we 
are to guard more jealously than ever the bul- 
warks of our strength ; that we are to avoid the 
false expediences that usurp the place of princi- 
ple; that we are to inculcate the elemental truths 
upon which our government is based, and upon 
whose preservation depends our perpetuity as 
a union. 

Let us not boast of our strength. It is in the 
hour of success that the germ of decay is un- 
folded. It is in the day of prosperity that we 
should cling most firmly to that truth and virtue 
which sustained our patriot fathers, and made 
us free. 

Men of America ! Forget not your trust. 
Liberty, battling everywhere with oppression, 
looks to you as her standard-bearers. See to it 
that no stain sullies the stars and stripes. See 
to it that the glorious emblem of our freedom 
waves ever from our shores, the signal of rescue 
and assistance to oppressed humanity. The 
genius of our institutions, in the name of that 



— 20 — 

spirit of universal freedom before whose resist- 
less presence the shackles of the slave fall off, 
and the man arises in the dignity of his nature, 
charges you to think of your privileges and your 
duties ; to remember that Providence permitted 
you to exist as representatives of those great 
ideas which will one day vindicate their truth 
to the nations of the earth ; to remember that 
your duty is to give these ideas that expansion 
and direction which their importance claims ; 
to remember that liberty is unselfish, confined 
to no land, but belongs as a God-given right to 
every man that breathes ; to remember, above 
all else, that, possessing liberty, it is your duty 
to protect it from the degrading contact with 
corruption at home, as well as against the at- 
tack of enemies from abroad. Make it a brio;ht 
and burning light, an example to the nations, 
a reproach to despotism, an incentive to arouse 
the oppressed to vindicate their humanity. 

And when, my countrymen, you have ac- 
complished all this, you can claim, with just 
pride, descent from those patriot fathers whose 
lives were spent in stern conflict for great prin- 
ciples, whose deaths were blessed by the sweet 
consciousness of duty well performed. Then 
can you claim as your countryman, him whose 



— 21 — 

name, luminous with the glory of the noblest 

life which history records, is written in the 

heart of humanity, as before all others her 

chosen champion ; whose pure and devoted 

patriotism is the corner-stone of our liberties. 

Citizens, on this day renew your vows to 

your common country. Swear, at her altar, that 

no defection of yours shall cause her to swerve 

from the path of right. Swear that the holy 

flame of patriotism shall burn 

" Unquenchcd through ages, 
Like Vesta's sacred fire." 

Make your standard of political excellence the 
faithful performance of your duties, and you 
secure to yourselves and your posterity the 
enjoyment of a freedom which will be purified 
and exalted with time. 



The following poem and letter are introduced here 
as an appropriate accompaniment to the preceding- 
address. 



ELEGY. 



fi'iend of other days 1 

So early fallen in thy manly prime ! 
In vain alike our grief, our praise — 

Another victim of the traitor's crime. 

Was it for this ? — the toil of studious years — 
That Spartan training for the Forum's strife ; 

Was it for this, that first among thy peers, 
We saw thee move with splendor into life ? 

All had been lost, but that true hearts like thine, 
When " shrieked the timid and stood still the brave," 

Strove to arrest the nation's swift decline 
To an untimely, an ignoble grave. 



I would not look upon thee, dead. 

Well memory holds the living form. 
That, when our last farewell was said, 

Vanished in darkness and in storm.* 

grave ! there comes a princely guest ! 

AVithin thy chambers dim and cold. 
Where sleep the brave, there give him rest. 

With heroes of the Days of Old. 

No more I hear that martial tone 

Ring boldly out on Freedom's side : 
There are, whose words are words alone ; 

But thou in Freedom's cause hast died. 

0. B. HITCHCOCK, Class of '52. 

* At our Class Meeting in '55, the late Col. Jackson was present by invitation. 
We separated at a late hour. 



LETTER 



Windham Centre, February 21, '62. 
PnoFESsoR Jackson : 

I THANK you for the kind expressions of your letter in reference to 

ray slight tribute to the memory of the late Col. Jackson, your son, 

and my friend in college days. 

Except the meeting mentioned in the note to the fourth stanza, I 
have not seen William since leaving college. His presence at our 
class-meeting was almost a thing of course. He always seemed to 
belong with us as much as to his own class; for he had many friends, 
many society and personal associates among us. He was quick to 
discern character ; nor did class or society connections, those barriers 
to common minds, oppose any obstacle to his search for intellectual 
fellowship and social intercourse. 

On my way to the West, July 3d, '59, I must have pas.sed without 
seeing William. He was to deliver the anniversary oration on the 
next day in this place. The compact and classical oration was pu- 
blished,* a copy reaching me in the Mis.sissippi valley. Well do I 
remember that afternoon of mingled reading and reverie out upon 
the prairie. The identity of the favorite speaker of the Philomathean 
was preserved in it : that the flower, this the fruit. The rhetoric of 
the collegian was condensing into the ethics of the statesman. 

It would be difficult for me to recall another scholar of aspiring 
mind, so generous in his estimate of others, so exacting towards 
himself. His singular beauty of person was in harmony with the 
structure of his intellect, elegant without efl'eminacy, graceful yet 
full of strength. His habits of conversation did not tend to idle talk, 
but he touched at once some point of philosophy or criticism, working 
habitually in lines of thought which others traversed only at set times 
and after special preparation. His fine critical acumen I have had 

* It was published in the newspaper issued at Windham Centre. No copy of this 
discourse was found among the papers of Col. Jackson; and for its preservation, 
his friends are indebted to the writer of the above article. 



— 24 — 

occasion to verify in subsequent studies : the sententious and just 
synthesis was not easily forgotten. Guarding himself from the al- 
lurement of literary embellishment by a patient study of the great 
masters in history and ethics, it was evident that his eye was upon 
the future, with wise forecast anticipating the need of discipline and 
accei)tiiig the established conditions of success. 

It seems as yesterday that we walked in the garden, discussing the 
problems of life and history; joined in the debates; read or listened 
to the appointed essay. It. seems but yesterday that he stood in his 
accustomed place, his eye s'lffused with inward fire, his voice rich and 
full of melody, his manner working upon all with a subtle pervading 
power, and eye and tone, gesture and presence, form and spirit, so 
wrought and attuned, so moulded and moved, so fashioned and in- 
formed with a vivid intelligence, that the mind's ideal was satisfied 
when William Jackson entered with his whole strength into a con- 
tested and prolonged debate. 

Yesterday ! a decade has passed ! Duty took from his hand the 
pen, and replaced it with a sword, saying: Go, serve your country. 
It is the law of sacrifice. The unblemished is for the altar. Friendship 
mourns; a light has gone out in your dwelling, that no power shall 
ever relume; but the great cause for which he died invests with its 
own sacredness his memory. The light which is piercing our gloom, 
and which we trust shall fill all our sky, will shed upon the grave of 
your fallen son its own imperishable glory. 

Yery respectfully yours, 

0. B. HITCHCOCK. 



MAY .15 -'J' , 



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